Robert Rorabeck Poems

The ships of dead kings sleep underneath the
Mabinogean orchards- and you have stepped across
The cinderblocks and rebar;
And the cars on blocks seem to know your name;
...

This is not a game, this is my soul being cleaned on
A rock; it is already very fine, and it is breathless:
You who should use all that there is, the very best of it
To cloth yourself and feed your children,
...

I love the smell of your body:
Each of your ears are like the bouquets of wildflowers
Who don’t yet know what they’re
Going to hear;
...

Flowers who close their blue eyes at night,
Stems who quiver like strings and the wind the bow:
I have seen you there sleeping too,
The sky a fire of untouchable passion, and the waves beside
...

Pillboxes along the beach as quiet as empty shells:
The terrapins are done,
And their young are running like inky yoke and
Ladling taffy back into the womb
...

I can listen to the wind for hours and it never
Haunts me;
It is soft and careless as a mother drinking in her rays;
Busting like a hound dog or a retarded gumshoe
...

All calmed and cooled like classes that are
Over and found to be insignificant as the loves I had before
Her,
In the daycares of third grade- all the waters on their backs
...

Mailmen can never be found on my
Alcoholic swings, because they are whistling and attending
To your neighborhood of sweet knees;
You dab your lips to boy sized dragons in the apiaries of your
...

Days stretch out like nude versions of your
Silhouette on paper that is burning
Before the golden eyes of an unidentified saint:
The conquistadors move up the sheer romances of
...

I went up to the university,
Sweaty and apoplexy and worked for hours in
A fast food supermarket:
And when I had time I smoked and watched the clouds
...